With What You Have | 83

Celebrating ingenuity, creativity, and resourcefulness (and a little lamp)

Words about contentment inspired this series that celebrates ingenuity, creativity, and resourcefulness. Join me in the comments and share what you've done with what you have.

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It’s hung over my desk for nearly a dozen years, lighting my way through hundreds of hours of design drawings and writing. A pull of the brass chain illuminated the ideas that fell, helping me see where to join them together, how to create something beautiful, something worth sharing.

I found it years ago, this little lamp, likely after typing into the search bar on Etsy or Ebay, the words: vintage, antique, wall, table, lamp, likely after being inspired to find something similar when I saw one somewhere, perhaps in the pages of a book or the pages of a blog.

This is often how I find things. First, there’s a need, then an inspiration, then a search. Even better when that search leads me into a deep dive through piles (or pages) of vintage or antique goods and I end up with a thrilling find.

It’s called a Gacor Handi Lamp, made in the 1920’s. (And now you know exactly what to type into a search bar to find one like it.) It’s made to sit on a table, clamp onto a table or bookshelf, or hang from a wall. Mine has a deep green base and shade with a brass stem and socket. The most endearing feature, though, is the acorn shaped bauble at the end of the brass pull chain.

Then one day you may pull the chain to light your desk, as you’ve always done, but the switch breaks inside and the chain doesn’t retract, and your sweet little lamp no longer produces light. When this happens, there’s not even a question about sending it off to be repaired. A new switch, yes, that’s right, you say to the repair person, and while you’re at it, a new twisted cloth cord and vintage-inspired plug.

And the day you pick it up, looking all fancy with its new parts, the people working at the lighting store gather in a cluster around the counter, oohing and awing over it (oh my gosh, the acorn!), clucking, and proud, they’re truly delighted to have had a chance with this little lamp. And you’re thrilled all over again knowing it’s yours.

At home, you carefully unpack the crumpled paper that protected it in its box, flip the hook on the back of the canopy, and hang it in its place above the desk. You screw a bulb in, and pull the acorn chain. Light falls and you feel like an old friend has come home. Because this one’s life is part of yours, now, and there are many more hours of drawing and writing ahead that need illumination.

Do what you can with what you have.